


Dreams of Another Life

by veritascara



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birth, Dimension Cannon, F/M, Post-Episode AU: s02e13 Doomsday, Pregnancy, Reunion Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritascara/pseuds/veritascara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Separated from his Rose by the walls of the universe, the Doctor dreams impossible dreams. But across the Void, those dreams may not look so improbable after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams of Another Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunaseemoony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/gifts).



> The very happiest of birthdays to the wonderful Lunaseemoony! Welcome to the 30 club! I hope this little piece of ridiculousness warms your heart. <3
> 
> Note that this story does contain a (very lovely, somewhat explicit) birth scene because, well, this is me writing and Moony receiving, haha.

_He dreams._

_It’s just a whisper at first, a soothing respite from the nightmares—painful memories of lives past and destruction wrought. But this is different. This is a sweet torture. And one he will gladly lose himself in over and over if it means getting to see her face._

_She lies spread out underneath him, hair fanned out around her like a halo, like a goddess to be worshipped—he always said he believed in her. And then she pulls him down and smiles and her smile shines like the three suns of Metraxine-4; his heart and his mind and his body catch fire from her radiance._

_He feels the gentle dance of delicate fingers skating across his bare chest, full lips smiling against his as he captures them with a kiss, and the taste of soft, honeyed skin under his tongue. It’s exquisite, this unreachable bliss—a reminder of love enjoyed for entirely too short a while, of fate’s reckless cruelty._

*******

“Can I—” Rose lifts her hand, reaching for the Doctor’s face. She longs to bring him close, to press her lips to his once more, to feel his skin against her fingers, warming them from the cold, spring winds that whip about her.

He shakes his head. “I'm still just an image. No touch.”

“Can't you come through properly?”

“The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”

The Doctor’s admission of the truth neither want to acknowledge sears her heart, and she fights back a wave of unwelcome nausea.

“So?”

_What does it matter if two universes might crash and burn?_ she adds silently, allowing herself to think this for just one moment.

Her unspoken question goes unanswered.

“Where are we? Where did the gap come out?” the Doctor asks, surveying the landscape around her—the cold, grey windswept beach, desolate as her heart.

Rose takes a deep breath and tears her eyes from his face to acknowledge her surroundings. “We're in Norway.”

“Norway. Right.” The Doctor nods.

“About fifty miles out of Bergen. It's called 'Dårlig Ulv Stranden’.”

“Dalek?” He looks at her in shock.

“Dårlig,” Rose repeats. “It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay.” She pauses, praying that those words—the same two that drew them back together before might trigger something in his mind, something to bring her back to him once more.

They don’t. He says nothing.

“How long have we got?” Rose asks, her voice beginning to crack.

“About two minutes.”

“I can't think of what to say!” Rose says, choking on a laugh. It’s the truth but it's not. She can think of things to say, too many things, things that will shake his world to pieces. Things that he might truly tear the universes apart for.

“You've still got Mister Mickey, then?” he asks, looking beyond her to where her family stands.

Rose wants to roll her eyes, wondering if simple jealousy has stolen over him again. He used to have so much of that back when he wore leather. But no, Mickey’s just a mate now. There’ll never be anything else between them. Why can’t he see that? Maybe she should tell him after all. Ease his fears. “There's five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey . . .” Her voice falters for a second. “And the baby.”

“You're not . . . ?” The look of devastation on his face, of hope given and taken away in the same breath is too much for her.

Rose looks down and away, throwing a quick glance back at her mum as she tries to think how to backtrack while internally cursing herself for hoping. He _can’t_ know. It would only make him more reckless. That’s plain to see from his expression. “No. It's mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way.”

He nods, and her heart drops.

She’s never lied to him like this before, but it’s all she knows to do.

******* 

_He dreams again of family lost. Children raised never knowing the depths of love_ all _young ones should be given by their parents. Lives extinguished in burning fires. The dreams ache and sear and pull at his hearts, until he begs for them to release him into the lonely waking hours, to sleepless days on end where he can run from one place to the next, heedless of the change of seasons and rhythms of life._

_But the dreams hold him fast, evolving and morphing into something bittersweet and undeserved._

_He dreams of a future. Of hope and life and love re-found. Of blessings twice over—the man arrayed in sackcloth and ashes, his life torn to shreds, restored and made whole again._

******* 

“Why didn’t you tell me, sweetheart?” Jackie asks, handing her a tissue.

“I don’t know, Mum. I just couldn’t. I always felt like he should be the first to know, and now . . .” Rose’s voice trails off, a fresh wave of tears joining the veritable ocean that have fallen before them.

Jackie sighs and wraps her arms around her daughter. “I’m here. You let it all out, love.”

“What am I going to do, Mum? I’m only twenty-one—I think. And I don’t even know if it’s going to be more human or alien? How can I going to raise a child like that? And without its dad?”

“The same way I did you.” Jackie presses a kiss to her hair and looks away, her voice wistful as she remembers years gone by, another husband lost when her own child was but a babe in arms. “One day at a time. One day at a time.”

******* 

_He dreams of her warm form lying next to his on their bed, the unerring realism of the sensation tantalizing him. She cuddles against his front, molding her body to his, and his hand slips automatically about her waist. He curls his fingers around her belly, the gentle undulations and occasional sharp kicks of his unborn child’s movements pressing against his palm._

_He hitches a breath, the unmistakeable evidence of the life within her drawing tears to his eyes, and she rolls to face him, wiping his cheeks with the back of her hand and kissing all his fears away._

******* 

Rose pants, biting back the urge to curse and scream, both at the pain tearing across her belly like a tiger’s claws flaying it open, and at the universes—at the nonsensical, cold cruelty that has forced her to do this without him, without the one person who means the most, and to whom this would mean the most.

“Breathe, Rose. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Then wait for the next one,” the midwife instructs, kneeling between her legs.

Rose slows her breathing and forces her eyes to focus on the woman—at her wildly curly salt-and-pepper hair, at her kind green eyes, at the lines around her mouth etched by decades of laughing at the joy of bringing new life into the world. Gradually, the tingling in her hands eases.

Then the pain begins again, and Rose surrenders to it once more, squeezing her mum’s hand and bearing down into the intense low pressure.

She growls, the feral call of a wolf.

“That’s perfect, Rose. Listen to your body. Easy pushes as the head begins to crown.”

Rose pushes down again, and the pressure transforms into searing pain.

She screams.

“That’s it. Push through the burning. You can do this!”

The contraction eases off and Rose cries, “I can’t do it. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Give it all you’ve got with the next contraction, and you’ll meet your baby. You’ll be a mum,” the midwife encourages, her smile gentle.

Rose flops her head back onto the pillow behind her, wondering what the hell she was thinking doing this on her own sofa in her own flat. But the risks inherent with having such a _different_ baby anywhere else in such an easily scared, xenophobic age hadn’t left her with much choice. Presented with the task, the older midwife had hardly batted an eyelash.

The pain and pressure begin again, a tidal wave breaking over her, and she fills her lungs against its flood and pushes.

“That’s it! That’s it. There you go!”

“Come on, sweetheart. You’re almost there.” Jackie squeezes her hand.

Rose screams again.

The midwife’s hands form a circle around the head, pushing back against Rose’s own efforts. “Easy now. Breathe. Just gentle pushes.”

She gulps down another lungful of air and grunts, fighting the urge to cry out. A sudden white-hot burst hits behind her eyes, and she squeezes her mum’s hand even tighter against the burning.

“The head is born! Now give me one more big push for the shoulders, Rose,” the midwife orders.

Rose inhales and pushes once more, and the baby tumbles out of her with a rush and into the midwife’s waiting hands. The pain ceases abruptly and she pants in relief, falling back against the cushions.

“Open your eyes. You have a son!”

“Oh, Rose, it’s a boy!” Jackie exclaims.

Her vision swims for just a moment, but Rose obeys, and her view is filled with the image of tiny flailing limbs and wide open eyes. The midwife lifts the baby up to her, and Rose receives him with open arms, wrapping him snugly in her embrace. He gives a lusty squall in protest of the cold world he has suddenly found himself thrust into, but soon settles comfortably into her chest—a tiny creature in his natural habitat against her skin.

“Oh my God, Rose, you’re a mum!” Jackie proclaims. “And look at me, I’m a Gran!”

Both women share a watery laugh, and then a thousand emotions for which no names could be adequate fill Rose’s heart and mind and her cup runneth over. Things like joy and love and peace and hope mixed inextricably with pain and loss and longing for the father her child can never know.

She presses a kiss to the top of her baby’s head as he lies snuggled safely between her breasts. “Hello, Seth. That’s your name, baby. Seth.” She lifts a hand and strokes his silky soft cheeks with the back of her fingers. “Someday I’ll tell you why.”

Batting back unbidden tears, Rose soon finds herself lost in the steady gaze of two tiny, dark eyes, wise beyond their years, as if in just minutes they have learned all the secrets of nine hundred years. Their depths are hauntingly familiar, along with the quirk of his brow.

The midwife dons her stethoscope to examine him as they await the placenta and presses it to the baby’s chest in multiple locations. “Definitely two strong hearts.” She smiles and goes back to her work.

Rose looks down at the woman and every ounce of strength that’s borne her up for months on end finally gives way, tears flooding down her cheeks as she clutches the bundle on her breast.

“Oh, sweetheart. Someday you'll find a way back to him,” Jackie reassures her.

“I just miss him so much, Mum. He was my whole world. He should be here.”

“I know, Rose. I know.” Jackie runs her fingers over the sparse brown hair crowning the baby’s head. “But look, you have a new world now.”

Rose closes her eyes, squeezing out the last few teardrops, and cradles her boy tight.

******* 

_He dreams what may be the cruelest dream yet. Because beautiful, perfect things are especially cruel when they are unattainable—the evil creations of his subconscious, sneaking their way out to torment and mock him by night._

_His hand clutches hers as he stands by her side in awe, the infant on her chest blinking against the glare of unfamiliar lights. She tells him he’s a daddy again, they’re a family, he’s no longer the last of his kind. Then she lifts the tiny, squirming bundle and places it in his arms._

_His son. He melts._

******* 

“This is the third time this week, Da— Director Tyler, that we've encountered Scythians entering our airspace. And every one of them has the same story—darkness, the destruction of their home world and nowhere left to go.”

“I know, Rose, and we’ll help them where we can, but it’s an unfortunate reality that sometimes planets are destroyed, homes lost. Conflicts happen. We can’t help them all,” Pete replies.

Mickey sits off to the side, his arms crossed in silent support, letting Rose speak her piece. They’ve had this discussion between themselves several times already.

“But this is different.” Rose pulls out a tablet and opens a file. “You need to see this. I’ve been discussing the case with Geoffrey in astrophysics, hoping he could verify the situation, and it’s much, much worse than we could imagine.

“This is an image taken of the quadrant around Scythia six months ago.” She points to one image, a small dark patch evident in the center, then loads another. “And this is the same location taken last week.”

Pete swipes back and forth between the photos, eyebrows hitting the ceiling at the clear disappearance of more than a dozen star clusters.

Rose presses her case further. “Something is happening. Geoffrey doesn’t know what is destroying them, but he said that no natural process has the ability to take out stars this way or this fast. And it's spreading. We’ve got to figure out what's going on and quick.”

Pete gives her and Mickey a hard look. “And what do you propose we do?”

Rose feels certain he already knows what she is going to say. “We need the Doctor.”

Pete sighs and shakes his head. “We've been over this a dozen times, Rose, and you know why we can’t look for him. Hell, you told me why. ‘Two universes would collapse.’ Isn’t that what he said himself?”

“Yes, Dad, it was,” Rose agrees solemnly, “but I . . .” Her voice trails off and tears prick her eyes, all the things she wants to say suddenly slipping from her mind.

“Pete,” Mickey speaks up. “If what we are seeing is right, the universe may be collapsing already. If that’s true, then trying to cross won’t create extra danger, or at least it’ll be worth the risk.”

Pete nods but his focus remains on Rose. “And you’re certain this has nothing to do with your personal interest in finding him?”

Rose stiffens and speaks, her voice low and firm, “You’ve known me for two years now. You know that I would do anything to get us back to him that I could, but I would never, ever risk Seth or anyone else in the process. But Pete, for over twenty years I grew up without you. I never knew my own dad. If there’s any chance I can find the Doctor again—without hurting anyone else—I will take it.” Her eyes moisten and she pauses a moment. “I’m thankful I’ve got to know you. Seth deserves to know his daddy too.”

Pete nods and swallows hard. He learned long ago not to get in the way of the Tyler women.  “Well, I guess we’ll have to find a way . . .” He moves back to sit at his desk and loads his computer. “I’m granting both of you full access to R&D, as well as notifying the team down there of recent developments. If the walls of the universe are weakening, we may be able to reengineer the hoppers to work.”

“Thanks, boss.” Mickey stands, preparing to leave.

Rose smiles.

******* 

_He dreams of the impossible, of things that could not, should not, be coming back to him but do anyways. A flash of golden hair. The brightest smile in the universe. Eyes the color of fine Scotch whiskey. And in these dreams, he’s surprised to find that it’s not loss that haunts him but another emotion entirely._

_He dreams of hope._

_Hope of holding her in his arms again even though the universes have seen fit to tear them apart. Hope of spinning around with a tiny boy in his arms, all brown curls and shrieking laughter. It’s irrational, ridiculous, completely unbelievable, but for once he lets it warm his hearts anyways._

******* 

“Bye, Rose.”

“See you tomorrow, Clara. Thanks,” Rose yawns as she shuts the door behind Seth’s nanny and shuffles to the refrigerator to put away the day’s supply of pumped milk for tomorrow before making her way to the bedroom. She can barely keep her eyes open anymore—the strain of adding dimensional research with the R&D team on top of her usual busy diplomacy workload for the past month.

Slowly, she opens the door, her eyes catching sight of the small form asleep on her bed as they adjust to the dim light. For a moment, she simply stands there watching him—the way his chest moves up and down, the sandy brown baby curls tousled from tossing and turning, long dark eyelashes curled against fair, round cheeks, relaxed limbs still chubby with baby fat.

He is beautiful, more so than anything she could have ever imagined. Rose sighs and begins undressing, throwing a pair of comfortable pajama bottoms and a large t-shirt on. Her heart clenches at the sudden memory of nights long ago when she would throw on the first clothing she could grab after she and the Doctor made love—so often something of his instead of her own.

“Mummy?” a tiny voice asks behind her.

Rose sighs and turns around. “What are you doing awake, love?” She knows it is because he isn’t particularly tired, simply the result of heredity for the kid whose alien father who rarely needs to sleep himself.

As always, Seth says nothing. He sits on the bed gazing unblinking at her with his round, chocolate brown eyes. He never has said much, which is surprising for the child of a man whose mouth can barely stop moving.

“Come here, baby.” Rose crawls into bed and holds out her arms, which Seth eagerly crawls into, burrowing against her chest, his ear to her one, singular heart, his two beating against her palm.

“We tested the cannon for the first time today, and it seems like it’s working. We might just be able to use it to find your daddy.”

Seth looks up at her expectantly and Rose smiles. Even the tiniest sliver of hope is better than none at all.

“We were able to send a rat to another dimension and pull it back, so that’s a start. Hopefully soon I can start crossing to look for him myself.” Seth continues to gaze at her with wide open eyes, the complete trust on display within them humbling to behold. Rose pauses. She’s told him so many stories, never really knowing what he does and doesn’t understand. “Do you want me to tell you about Daddy again?”

The tiny boy nods and claps his tiny hands with excitement.

“Have I told you about the time we went to Scotland and met a werewolf?”

He shakes his head.

“Come here, love.” Rose settles into the bed and pulls him up against her, curling herself protectively around his small form. “Well, this time we were supposed to be going to 1979, to a concert, but the TARDIS—that’s his ship, remember—” The little boy nods. “Well, she has a mind of her own and sometimes takes us somewhere else, so we ended up in 1879 instead . . .”

Rose carries on, telling Seth of meeting a great queen, of a house in Scotland, and a poor boy transformed into an alien monster.

Slowly, Seth’s eyes drift shut, and he floats off into his dreamworld, the cadence of her voice carrying him thence like the lazy current of a gentle stream. Rose wonders what he dreams of. What goes on in the head of little, sixteen-month-old half-alien boys who almost never speak?

It’s a mystery she can only begin to imagine, just like his Daddy.

“I promise you, we’ll find him, sweet boy. You and me together.”

She presses a kiss to the top of his head and closes her own eyes. The morning, and the renewed search, will arrive all too quickly.

******* 

_He dreams of darkness, of a hundred unfathomable worlds, each alternate reality created in the work of a moment, the results of little decisions twisting the fabric of time and space._

_He dreams of walking through the Void—the dead space, the endless nothingness—to reach these worlds, some of which make him shiver in fear, their timelines so skewed from his own that it grates on his senses until he wishes he could turn his awareness off. But still their parade continues, and he feels his hope wax and wane like the cycles of the moon._

_Closer, farther, closer again._

******* 

“Control, I need another shift. Pull me back. This will be the last,” Rose instructs into her comm. and looks up one more time at the blonde woman and elderly man standing in front of her. “Right, I'm going to find him. Wish me luck.”

“Oh, good luck,” Sylvia says.

“Yeah, good luck, sweetheart,” Wilf echoes, his eyes warm and hopeful.

She’s going to need it.

Her hands shake, fumbling with the button on the controller until she finds it at last. The freezing pull of the Void claws at her skin, and mere moments later, the stark white walls of the base appear before her eyes.

Her mum runs up to her, clutching Seth. “Are you sure about this, Rose? Are you sure it’s safe?”

Rose bites her lip and takes the sleeping bundle from Jackie’s arms and lets one of her co-workers help strap him securely into a carrier on her back. “I don’t know, Mum. I can’t know for sure. But he needs his Daddy, and this is our last shot. I can’t waste it. If the Doctor’s able to fix things, there’s no telling if I’d even be able to come back for him. I can’t risk Seth getting left behind.”

Jackie nods and wraps her arms around her daughter, then presses a kiss to the cheek of her sleeping grandson, blissfully unaware of the way the universes are preparing to shift around him. “I love you, sweetheart. You make sure his nibs takes care of you two, or I’ll find another way straight across just to set him right.”

Rose laughs at Jackie’s candor. “I will, Mum. I love you too.” Rose kisses her back and hugs her tight another time. One last embrace to make up for a lifetime of separation. Then she picks her gun back up and straps it likewise around her shoulders.

“We’re ready. Lock me onto the TARDIS now.” She nods at her colleague.

One shot through the Void with Seth. That is all she can safely do. She can’t risk him. This has to be it.

The technician nods. “Locking on. Prepare to shift in three, two, one . . .”

The world tilts around her again, and the darkness squeezes them both tight, more like a vice than a hug. The sleeping toddler on her back whimpers at the sensation, and she is grateful when it is over quickly. As the pressure ceases, he falls back into an uneasy slumber and she relaxes as well.

Even the streetlamps seem bright after the murky blackness of nothing, and Rose blinks as she scrutinizes her surroundings. They appear to be on some sort of abandoned street. Everything is eerily quiet, cars left with doors wide open, not a soul in sight—no doubt the work of the Daleks. The unnatural stillness grates on her senses. Seth whines again in his pack.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” Rose soothes.

Then the soft echo of distant voices catches her ear, and she rounds a corner to follow it, the most wonderful sight in all the universes greeting her eyes.

There he is, standing with the woman she now knows well as Donna Noble next to his dear timeship. At a nod from his companion, the Doctor turns to face her. Rose freezes, her legs rooted to the ground even as a brilliant smile steals across her face—involuntary joy taking hold of her.

“We’re home,” she whispers to the sleeping bundle of toddler on her back.

The Doctor sets off at a run towards her, and she starts walking forward, all her energy directed into propelling her leaden feet. In another life, another time, she might once have flown to the Doctor, her feet borne forward with wings like Mercury's, but not now. In the intervening years, raising a child who was so different from his peers—whose development she truly knows nothing about—she has learned caution. Instead, she walks forward steadily, gun raised and ready, should anything threaten her tiny cub. Mirroring her, the Doctor's pace slows, a measure of anxiety creeping into his face at her hesitation and the large gun in her arms.

Her hesitation proves well founded.

“Exterminate.” The metallic, grating voice of a Dalek sounds from a nearby alley, and Rose raises her gun just in time to shoot it before it discharges its own weapon, its blaster aimed straight for her advancing Doctor.

It explodes with a blast, and Seth squalls in protest at his disturbed sleep.

The Doctor runs forwards the last few paces, throwing his arms around her and burying his face in her shoulder. “Rose, Rose, Rose.”

Seth cries louder.

Rose hitches a breath, anxiety blooming within her as she watches the realization of what his ears are hearing and what his hands are touching on her back dawns on the Doctor. He stumbles backwards.

“Doctor, I can explain . . .” Rose unbuckles the straps hurriedly and pulls Seth off her back and into her arms. The boy lays his head on her shoulder, and his cries ease as she rocks him.

Out of the corner of her eye, a brilliant flash of light heralds another arrival on the scene—Jack, but none of them can be bothered to care at the moment.

Swallowing hard, Doctor steps forward, his mouth opening and closing multiple times, words escaping him in a way Rose has never seen before. When he finally speaks, the two words out of his mouth are the very last she expected to hear.

“He’s real.” His voice is rough with restrained emotion.

Rose stares at him in confusion for a moment, unsure what to say. “Yeah,” she finally replies. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I—”

Jack interrupts her confession. “I hate to break up the beautiful family reunion here, and I believe I’m owed a whole lot of juicy details on exactly how this came to pass, guys, but we’ve got more company coming.”

“Into the TARDIS, now,” the Doctor orders, his arm encircling her shoulder, leading them both to safety.

******* 

_He is dreaming. Surely, that’s the only explanation for the sight that greets his eyes. The glances he steals across the console are not his own. She cannot be standing there, the tiny figment of his overactive imagination safely ensconced in her arms, his small eyes roving about the TARDIS, filled with the very purest wonder and awe._

_But then she speaks, of stars going out, of desperate measures to find him, of years spent hoping for his return, and he dares hope, that if he wakes, every bit of it might be true after all._

******* 

Seth whines again and pulls at Rose’s shirt as she scoots up the bed, propping pillows behind her.

“Just a minute, baby. Just a minute.” She lifts the magenta fabric and opens her bra underneath, and the little boy eagerly settles into position in her lap and begins suckling vigorously.

“Yeah, I know you need to unwind too.” Rose rests her head back against the pillows and headboard, letting all the stress fall away from her shoulders and face as a sense of relaxation and peace floods her system, the result of hormones she might as well be addicted to after a year and a half of this. The smells and sounds of home surround her—the Doctor’s aftershave, the TARDIS’s hum. It’s almost everything she’s ever wanted in the universe.

Seth’s own face eases, and his eyes drift shut occasionally, his arms and legs going limp around her.

The door opens—the door to their room. It’s been so long since she’s been in here, and that thought is very welcome. The Doctor steps through, a sheepish, hesitant expression on his face, like he desperately wants to approach, but is afraid that doing so might burst some imaginary bubble in his heart. He stands there for a minute, unmoving.

“Has everyone gone home now?”  Rose asks, trying to think how to break the ice.

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. Everyone’s back in London where they belong, even Mickey. He wanted to stay.”

“Well, that’s good.”

He still doesn’t move.

“I’m really here, you know.”

Something breaks inside of him, and he launches forward, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process of trying to reach them. He sits ungainfully on his side of the bed and stares at the toddler, swallowing hard. Then his fingers brush lightly through the child’s curls.

Seth pauses his suckling and turns his head slightly to look at the Doctor, regarding him with serious eyes.

A small, hopeful smile creeps onto the Doctor’s face, and the baby releases her nipple and pushes away, his own breaking into the widest grin imaginable as he sits back on his heels and claps his hands. “Daddy! Daddy!”

The Doctor holds out his arms, and the little boy crawls into them without hesitation. “Yep. I’m your Daddy,” he says, choking back tears.

“Mummy told me stories. Lots and lots of stories. She told me about you and your ship and your robot dog. Can I have a robot dog? I want a robot dog!” The words tumble out of the child in a rush—her tiny boy who has never said more than ‘mummy’ in his whole life—and Rose gapes.

The Doctor laughs. It starts small at first, but then it grows, until somehow all three of them are howling with laughter, unrestrained joy pouring out to fill the room with pure, holy love.

“Of course! You can have a thousand robot dogs if you want. And I’ll even give you the moon too,” the Doctor says, when his breath returns.

“Wow! Can we make one now? Can we? I can help. I can find the transpis— tranips— transistors for it!”

“In the morning, silly boy. Little Time Lords still need their sleep.” Rose laughs, all traces of melancholy now erased, and rubs his head. “I guess he’s got your gob after all. I used to think he’d never talk.”

The Doctor beams, his face that of the quintessential proud father. “Well, of course he does. He just needed a little telepathic spark to set all that off in him. Just wait, next week he’ll be ready for his first lessons in manipulating roentgen radiation. Won’t you, my boy?”

Seth nods vigorously. “Yep!”

“Seriously? Radiation for babies?” Rose replies wryly. “Pretty sure that wasn’t in any of the baby books I read.”

“Ah, well we can throw all those out now, can’t we, Seth? You’re going to grow up like a proper Time Lord.” The Doctor stops and pulls at his ear. “Or, er, maybe not. They were a stuffy lot. We can do much better than that.”

Seth giggles and settles comfortably on the Doctor’s lap. Their giddy joy slowly morphs into an easy, relaxed peace, and Rose sighs, watching the little boy drift off against his daddy. The Doctor plays with his hair, twirling the curls gently around his long fingers, and tracing the outlines of his face.

Rose brushes tears from her cheeks, now happy ones, at least. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I wanted to, but you looked so sad, and I was afraid—afraid that if I did, it might make you do something you’d regret,” she whispers.

“I could never regret anything I do for you,” he says earnestly.

“You’re so daft.”

“Seth,” he murmurs.

“Is that all right? I didn't exactly know what proper Time Lord names were. Doctor, Jr. sounded a bit pretentious, and Mum wasn’t too impressed when I suggested we just give him a title for a name like ‘the Baby.’”

The Doctor chuckles. “What made you pick it?”

Rose lays her head on the Doctor’s shoulder and twines her hand with his free one. “I remembered the story from ages ago. My gran took me to church sometimes. She was a very religious woman. And it just seemed to fit—Seth, the baby given to the mum and dad who’d just lost another in a tragedy, the child made to fill that void—so they could start over. And it just clicked, is all. You’d lost everything you had before. And I’d lost you.”

Rose looks up and finds the Doctor’s eyes gazing down at her hungrily, like a man gazes upon a desert oasis, praying again that it’s not just another mirage.

“Having him was having hope,” she continued, “that maybe I hadn’t lost you forever after all, and maybe someday . . . maybe you could start over too.”

“Thank you,” he chokes out.

“I love you.”

His mouth opens and closes. For a moment he can’t pronounce the words. They stick in his throat, choking him until he finally sets them free. “I love you too.”

Rose’s face lights up and she laughs, a beautiful, musical sound. “Quite right, too.”

He groans, but before he can say another word, she presses her lips to his for just a moment—a sweet, simple kiss, a promise for the future. One hope fulfilled, many more to come.

******* 

_He doesn’t need to dream anymore, not with life laid out before him like a field of wheat, golden and full and ready for harvest, but sometimes he does anyways, and these dreams are the best of all._

_He dreams of a little boy who talks a mile a minute and runs circles around him as they travel across time and space, all three together—him, the love of his lives, and their child. There are birthdays and adventures and a baby sister with a shock of chestnut brown hair that sticks straight up like grass from her tiny head and two tender hearts big enough to love all the creatures of an entire galaxy._

_It is everything he never knew he always wanted and certainly everything he never deserved._

_And every time he stops to think, he remembers he isn’t just dreaming these things up._

_And he lives._


End file.
